May 8, 2014
50 cents Jefferson County, Colorado | Volume 148, Issue 22
A publication of
goldentranscript.net
Traffic cameras not going away
CREEKSIDE RENOVATIONS
Measure hits brick wall upon reaching House By Vic Vela
vvela@coloradocommunitymedia.com
As of April 22, a portion of the Clear Creek Trail located directly behind the Golden Library will be closed until mid-May. The city has started construction of the new Library Plaza sitting area as part of efforts toward improvements along Clear Creek. The plaza will feature an arbor, benches and landscaping. A rendering of the plaza can be found at www.cityofgolden.net under News. Photo by Amy Woodward
Breakfast honors those who serve others By Amy Woodward
awoodward@colorado communitymedia.com It was an early start to a positive morning at the 24th annual Good News Breakfast at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds on Tuesday, April 29. This year’s theme, “Service Projects Strengthen Our Community,” awarded local volunteers, clubs and organizations that have created impressive services which have made an impact within the communities they serve. “When you’re working in service, you’re working alongside some truly amazing people,” said Teo Nicolais, keynote speaker and president-elect of the Kiwanis Club of Alameda West; a global organization separated into local entities which perform various community service projects. “Through service we strengthen others, our personal communities and of course we also strengthen ourselves,” Nicolais said. A total of 12 service projects scattered throughout Jeffco received awards including Arvada Wheat Ridge Service Ambassadors for Youth’s Santa House which provides holiday gifts for students from 16 Arvada and Wheat Ridge elementary schools; The Neighborhood Rehab Project a volunteered based home im-
provement program which helps residents in Golden with everyday home repair and garden work; The Senior Resource Center’s Holiday Food Baskets which have become a tradition with seniors creating 130 decorated boxes filled with food and gifts. These boxes are delivered to the elderly and persons with disabilities during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Former Jeffco public schools superintendent, Cindy Stevenson, was this year’s Golden News Coalition’s Hall of Fame recipient. After 41 years, Stevenson announced her abrupt resignation in February, ahead of her scheduled departure in June. “Dr. Stevenson, you are my mentor, my friend, you have always made one thing apparently clear — that students are first and foremost in your heart,” said Ron Castagna, principal of Lakewood High School. “You deserve much, much more, you led all of our schools, you were a mentor to many of us as educators and I will always call myself teacher because of you.” Students from the Lakewood High School Choir joined the stage to serenade an emotional Stevenson as they sang their appreciations and goodbyes with “To Sir with Love” by classical music singer Lulu. “We create a great district for our children and we create
POSTAL ADDRESS
An emotional former superintendent Cindy Stevenson, who recently left Jefferson County Public Schools after 41 years, listens to students from the Lakewood High School choir who showered her with flowers and songs of appreciation and goodbyes during the 24th annual Good News Breakfast on Tuesday, April 29. Photo by Amy Woodward a great district for our teachers and now it’s your job,” Stevenson said to the audience. “I miss you every day, thank you for a great career and thank you
GOLDEN TRANSCRIPT
for this incredible honor.” Next year will be the 25th Anniversary of the Good News Breakfast which will be on April 21. To register visit www.good-
After a bill cruised through the Senate, the House last week put the brakes on the measure, which sought to ban red-light cameras and photo radar systems in Colorado. The legislation officially met its demise during a House Appropriations Committee hearing on April 30, but the bill’s sponsor, House Speaker Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, had pretty Report much accepted its defeat before it even got there. Senate Bill 14 would have prohibited local governments from using photoradar technology to capture drivers who speed or run red lights. It was gutted by the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, which passed a strippeddown version of the bill on April 28. The gutted version only would have allowed for a state study of the technology’s public-safety effectiveness, something that Ferrandino didn’t think was necessary. “I think we have enough studies to show that it’s not effective,” Ferrandino told the Appropriations Committee. Ferrandino and other bill supporters argued that photo-radar technology is a cash cow used by local governments to rack up revenue, courtesy of lead-foot drivers. The House speaker also said the technology does little to prevent accidents. “They give a sense of public safety, but don’t actually increase public safety,” Ferrandino said. But several law-enforcement representatives testified otherwise during the committee process. Supporters of the technology asserted that the devices serve as a blessing for understaffed police agencies and that the presence of the cameras curbs bad habits on the part of drivers. “If you just look at the money side and ignore the public-safety side, to me the public-safety side triumphs,” said Rep. Jeanne Labuda, D-Denver. The bill’s gutted version called for an effectiveness study that would have been undertaken by the Colorado Department of Transportation. But House Appropriations Committee member Max Tyler, DLakewood, wasn’t willing to fund the legislation at the possible expense of other CDOT projects. “I’m wondering what bridge is not going to be built, what road is not going to be protected,” Tyler said. “Where are they
Capitol
Cameras continues on Page 17
(ISSN 0746-6382)
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